


Caged

by DancingSpy (kennys_birthday)



Category: Charlie Bone Universe - Jenny Nimmo, Children of the Red King - Jenny Nimmo
Genre: Gen, It's more likely than you think!, importing my eight year old fanfics from ff.net?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 20:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18169754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kennys_birthday/pseuds/DancingSpy
Summary: There are times, Emilia thinks, that the world seems like one great, topsy-turvy thing of stuff, and that just seems to be the best way to describe it.





	Caged

There are times, Emilia thinks, that the world seems like one great, topsy-turvy  _thing_  of  _stuff,_  and that just seems to be the best way to describe it.

There are moments, whilst she is sitting in that  _(oh so empty)_  room of hers, when she imagines bursts of colours, dancing across the white walls, creating masterpiece after masterpiece, story after story, and she can't help but wonder if this is what the real world is like.

* * *

She doesn't remember when she first arrived at the Moon household. She doesn't remember much, to be honest. But what little she does remember scares her beyond belief.

She remembers a pair of coal black eyes, the never ending darkness,  _(a boy, a boy, he was only a boy...),_ the sensation of falling, a clock chiming midnight  _(for she somehow knows that it is midnight),_ but it only ever reaches it's eleventh chime before being abruptly silenced. There is the faint sound of an organ, a haunting melody ever-present in the back of her mind, a man's cry of pain as he is thrown to the ground, and then silence. The constant silence which seems to be following her, intent on catching up.

Emelia prefers it when she forgets.

* * *

She had an odd dream one night. She dreamt she was a bird, a tiny brown and grey bird, that matched the colours of the dead leaves perfectly, and as she flew out of the window of the Moon's house, they followed, but could not find her.

However she couldn't hide forever, and as the Cathedral clock chimed midnight, Emilia decided it was safe to come out. But when she moved, wherever she stepped, the colour returned to the dead leaves, spreading from her tiny bird footsteps like an ever growing spiderweb. She took to the skies, hoping to stop the colour giving away her position, but wherever she flew, the colour followed, vibrant greens and blues  _(and oranges and yellows and purples and pinks and reds and golds)_  and soon the Moon's found her, trapping her in a small white box and taking her home again.

She awoke, gasping and sweating as the Cathedral clock told the town that Midnight was upon them. She looked around her room, at the colourless walls and the colourless floor and the colourless ceiling and the colourless bedsheets, and she had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't still trapped in that tiny white box.

She hugged her duck teddy tightly, the only splash of colour in the room, and silently wondered why the Moon's hadn't made that white, too.

* * *

When she enters her room one morning, she is pleasantly surprised to see an odd collection of brightly coloured objects on her bed.

The masks are placed carefully on her desk, the flute delicately moved to the safety of her chair, and the paints...

Well, the paints end up all over the walls.

It starts as a simple swirl, leading from the corner of the wall and eventually branching off in any given direction. There is a rainbow leading from one side of the room to the other, painted on the ceiling, too. On one wall there was a skeletal tree, with many different silhouettes of birds perched on the impossibly thin branches, whilst on the other there is the Cathedral, it's clock hands frozen at 12 o'clock. Next to the bird tree, Emilia paints another tree, this one with leaves the colour of fire, and a white horse standing in the safety of it's shadow.

On the third wall, she draws a bookshop. A woman stands outside, and Emilia jerks the paintbrush away from the wall when she sees the look of total heartbreak she has just painted on the woman's face. And on the final wall, she paints two figures. A knight with a cloak the colour of blood, and a man  _(a man, no longer a boy)_ with a menacing grimace.

She takes a step back to admire her handiwork, and notes that the only place where she used the black paint was the menacing man's eye-sockets.

When Mr and Mrs Moon enter later that evening, they scream in anger, and Emilia is packed off to Bloors Academy the next morning.

* * *

Sometimes, Emilia likes to sit and listen to the clock tick  _(tock tick tock)_  away in the silence, and imagines that it is counting down to something.

She doesn't know what the countdown is leading to, but she knows that it is something big, and exciting, and dangerous, all at the same time. There will be freedom, and expression, and birds. Yes, she likes the thought of birds  _(and they're free, aren't they?)_

She's home from Bloors for the weekend, and her drawings have been painted over, and the room is bare once more. As she looks around, she realises that all of her pencils and pens have gone. Anything she could use to draw on the walls with has vanished. With this sudden realisation comes an overwhelming sensation of loss, and fear. Her fingers itch, and she wants  _(needs)_ to draw.

The clock ticks in the white-box room, and Emilia counts down the moments 'till she's back at Bloors, and near her art-supplies. She doesn't care about Manfred, with his coal-black eyes  _(that she can't look away from, no matter how hard she tries)_ , and she doesn't care about scary Dr. Bloor, who seems to like nothing more than shouting at her.

Returning to Bloors for a second week is not big, or exciting, or dangerous, and there are very little birds, but the thought of it numbs the empty pain for a bit, and the clock ticks on.


End file.
